Research aims to standardize beer

MINNEAPOLIS -- Scientists hope a new study will help develop a way for brewers to manufacture a beer that tastes as good in the dead of winter as it does on a hot summer day.

The study will investigate how growing conditions and locations can affect hops, barley and other ingredients and change the flavor and aroma of a brand of beer from batch to batch.

The Department of Agriculture has awarded a $300,000 grant to a subsidiary of Brooklyn Center, Minn.-based Mocon Inc. to study how variables affect beer ingredients, and to develop a high-tech instrument that will adjust the beverage to a brewer's standard.

Mocon's Microanalytics subsidiary in Round Rock, Texas, is working with a taste panel at Texas A&M University on the two-year study.

The aim of the beer study, once the aroma and flavor components have been identified, is to create a quality control detector that can adjust the components to a standard level and is easy to use on the production floor.